top of page
  • Writer's pictureDale V Wayman, PhD

Children Often Know Best - Adler's Wisdom


As the family should be a unit, with each member an equal part of the whole, so, too, should the class. When they are trained in this way, children are really interested in one another, and enjoy co-operation.


Some people doubt whether children can really be trained to understand and help one another in this way; but it is my experience that children often understand these things better than their elders. A mother once brought her two children, a girl of two years and a boy of three, into my room:


The little girl climbed up on a table and her mother was petrified. She was too scared to move, but cried out, ‘Come down! Come down!’ The little girl paid no attention to her.


The three-year-old boy said, ‘Stay there!’ and the girl immediately climbed down safely. He understood her better than her mother and knew what to do in the circumstances.


Alfred Adler (1870-1937), What Life Could Mean to You: The Psychology of Personal Development, 1931, 1992, p. 141. Edited by Colin Brett. Excerpts by Carroll R. Thomas, Ph.D., June 15, 2021

22 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

To properly parent, it is important to know what motivates children. If you can figure out a child's goal, then you can figure out how to best help them. If you can identify the goals of a child you

This story about Adler's way of getting a 5-year-old to pick up his toys is told by Dr. Herbert Schaffer, President of the French Adlerian Society: In Amsterdam, I was part of a scene which remains in

Many kids play video games. Alfred Adler theorized that if you want to understand children watch them play. He and others indicated that play is to children as work is to adults. Adler and others e

bottom of page